Field of the Invention
The present invention, in general, relates to a heating and cooling cup holder that users can conveniently use due to its rapid effect and improved performance and that has a high commercial value because it can rapidly provide users with a cold drink or a hot drink in a vehicle.
Description of Related Art
Cup holders are mounted on vehicles. Most of the cup holders have the function of simply holding cups, but there are also cup holders that have the function of cooling/heating a cup in some kinds of vehicles.
However, those cup holders of the related art generally cool/heat cups, simply using only heat conduction, so there is a problem in that cups are not sufficiently cooled/heat by heat conduction alone.
Peltier elements are used for cup holders in the related art, but cups in the cup holders are heated or cooled only by heat conduction through the bodies of the cup holders.
This configuration has a problem in that cooling/heating by heat conduction is not sufficient when the contact area between a cup and the cup holders is small. The sizes of cups and the cup holders are not always the same, there are cups with recessed bottoms, and there is little heat transfer through conduction in paper cups made of paper with low thermal conductivity, so the temperature of the cups simply maintains equilibrium with the temperature around the cups.
Therefore, there is a need of a cup holder that can practically and efficiently cool/heat cups by solving these problems.
Further, a related art proposes a cup holder, but it also achieves cooling/heating by conduction only, so there is a problem in that the efficiency of cooling/heating is very low in practice.
The information disclosed in this Background of the Invention section is only for enhancement of understanding of the general background of the invention and should not be taken as an acknowledgement or any form of suggestion that this information forms the prior art already known to a person skilled in the art.